Cadillac dealership to stay open - for now

A month after announcing plans to close downtown Seattle's only Cadillac car dealership, the owner is staying put - for a while at least.

Frederick Cadillac owner Biff Brotherton said plans to close the well-known lot at Sixth Avenue and Bell Street on June 30 and merge the business with a car dealer in Renton unraveled in the last week of June.

But not before the dealer sent going-out-of-business letters and threw a goodbye party for customers complete with champagne and hors d'oeuvres.

The dealership, which Brotherton took over in 1984, has been running radio announcements promising to rescind any car sale made during the going-out-of-business period, if the buyer chooses.

For now, Frederick Cadillac will continue business as usual.

Brotherton says the incident started when his landlord approached him about the lease on the property, which is in an area where real estate has heated up in recent months as downtown developers move northward.

Frederick Cadillac's lease expires in two years, but "as my landlord has assured me, it's not the best use of the land," Brotherton said.

Read: The property at 2301 Sixth Ave. could generate a lot more money from leases if it were developed as something other than a car lot.

"He told me that Frederick Cadillac would not be there a day after the lease runs out," Brotherton said.

So the economics of real estate, not car sales, nearly drove Frederick Cadillac out of Seattle.

A potential business partner came forward in the fall offering to merge Frederick Cadillac into an existing Renton dealership and make Brotherton's son, Brad, executive manager.

But the deal suddenly fell through last month, Brotherton said. He declined to discuss the details.

Brotherton says he and his son, general manager at Frederick Cadillac, would like to find another site to continue the business beyond the next two years.

That'll be a difficult task, though, because state law prohibits two same-make auto dealerships within eight miles of each other, the elder Brotherton said. There's already a Cadillac dealer in North Seattle and one in Bellevue.

Renton and downtown Seattle may be the only options for a new site.

Despite the confusion of closing, then not closing his business, Brotherton said he's happy he can keep selling Cadillacs on Sixth Avenue.

"It's been sort of an emotional roller coaster, but we'll just have to persevere and find another place" he said.

Tyrone Beason's phone message number is 206-464-2251. His e-mail address is: tbeason@seattletimes.com.